Debut filmmaker Trygvi Danielsen had no doubts. When he sat down to write the script of his first feature film, 111 Good Days (111 góðir dagar), he knew it had to be in the Faroese language. Coming from a nation of only 50,000 people, he did not care whether other people outside his country would understand the spoken word – the most important mission was for him to make a true portrait of a generation of men growing up in Faroe Islands. If the subject matter was relatable, the film would travel and be relatable to many cultures, he thought.

111 Good Days is about two young men in their 20s. They both live in the capital of Faroe Island, Torshavn, which with its population of around 13,000 is the smallest capital in the world. In spite of living in a fairly small town, the two men don’t know each other, but coincidentally keep running into each other almost everywhere they go. Teitur (Torkil Tórgarð) seems lost and uses drugs to escape reality and Baldur (Búi Dam) seems to have found his path – as a kind of spiritual preacher – but is still struggling with his place in the world. The two men seem to be very different, but as they keep running into each other, it becomes apparent, that some sort of magic is bringing them together. We spoke to Trygvi Danielsen from his home in Torshavn.

111 Good Days follow the two young men Teitur and Baldur, who seem to have nothing in common as they try to make sense of their lives in Torshavn. How did you get the idea for the film?

I got the idea from my experiences, my environment. In my early twenties, there were a lot of dark, druggie, new age, illuminati-conspiracy-theory kind of vibes in Tórshavn, and most of my friends had moved abroad to study, as is the Faroese norm, as the local university is small and limited. The combination of these factors made it a very heavy time that I had difficulties dealing with. My mental health was rapidly declining, so I naturally became a sort of recluse, which helped me a lot.

During this time of reflection, I watched a lot of films and became enamored with the idea of making a film about these societal issues that I was observing in young men, myself included, where alternative spirituality and drugs would be in the forefront, since they were essential themes of my youth and had not been depicted in any kind of Faroese media. At the same time, I wanted it to be a distinctly Faroese film, yet internationally relatable, that had a magical hopefulness alongside the bleak hopelessness. 

You have structured the film in four chapters. We see the two men go through various confrontations that reveal to us who they are. Teitur is avoiding responsibilities and Baldur wants to be a preacher and seems to think he has special powers. What inspired you to structure the narrative of the film in this way?

I wanted the two of them to be polar opposites, yet very similar underneath it all. They have different approaches and ways of dealing with life, but, at the core, they are just lonely and confused young men trying to figure out how to be a person. The chapters happened naturally, since we made a short film version of the film to raise funding for the feature to be made. Hence, we had one chapter and only needed three more, which made the project more realistic from a budget point of view.

Your leading characters are men in their 20s and it seems to be hard for them to find their way in the small community of Tórshavn and they seem lonely. Teitur is trying to escape reality through drugs for instance. What did you want to say about this generation living in Tórshavn?

I just wanted to depict the vibes, types, and cultural challenges here, and how the different types of masculinity adapt to them. For some reasons, young men have bigger issues adapting to adulthood. There was rampant disillusionment among my contemporaries, especially at that time, and I just found it really interesting and wanted to portray it. The characters are based on many different people, including myself.

Why the number 111 in the title? Why 111 Good Days?

It ties in with the new age themes of the film. Numerology is a big thing with a lot of people I know, including a close friend, whom the Baldur character is largely based on, and he introduced me to the angel number of 111. After that, I just started noticing it a lot, and it always gave me some sort of comfort. It was a little tribute to my friend and to the feeling of being on the right track, somehow, some way.

You are a debut filmmaker and it seems you enjoy playing with the language of film. Who are your role models in terms of filmmaking?

Yes, indeed. I always enjoyed David Lynch‘s descriptions of intuitional filmmaking, where you don’t always know the exact reason why you are making your decisions, there might not be a rational or formal reason, but you are following your gut feeling and just counting on it to make sense later on. This was largely my approach to the film: If I got an idea that I liked, I just followed it in whatever direction it wanted to take me. That was really fun, and a lot of it made sense to me much later in the process. My role models include the 60s nouvelle vague directors and the 90s indie wave, in both cases people were enjoying themselves and experimenting with low budgets, a reality that I also had to face. Therefore, non-budget debut features always inspired me a lot, the likes of Richard Linklater‘s Slacker and Kevin Smith’s Clerks. I also really like Roy Anderson, the Swedish director, and Mike Leigh, as well.

There are very few films film coming out of Faroe Islands and it is a small nation of about 50,000 inhabitants. How challenging was it getting the film made?

Yes, this is actually the first feature to be made solely on funding from the Faroese film fund, a very modest fund of about USD 145,000, and only the fifth feature film made in Faroese by Faroese people. So, financially, it was almost impossible, but we managed to do it with great help from the community and partly through crowd funding, as well. Practically, once you have some money, the Faroe Islands are a decent place to make films, because you have a lot of skillful, helpful people, including crew and actors, and some pretty good locations, if you’re interested in that. We chose to focus on the uglier places, a kind of anti-Visit Faroe Islands approach to the aesthetics. Meaning: We didn’t use the beautiful scenery and landscapes.

What made you want to create a film in your native language?

It would be unnatural and weird to do it in any other language. Faroese is quite dear to me, I have studied Faroese language and literature at the University, so I have a formal education in it, but I didn’t want the film to have a purist approach to language, I wanted the actors to speak like people on the street, I wanted it to sound fluent on the big screen, which isn’t easy for a language that is so underdeveloped cinematically, Faroese people aren’t used to hearing Faroese in this context, which is a bit of a challenge, because there are many purists who want the language to be proper, pure and grammatically correct, but people don’t always talk like that, and I much prefer the realism to the correctness. People did generally enjoy that aspect of it, but it also made some people angry.

How was the film received in Faroe Islands?

It was very well received in the local cinemas where it ran for about three months. Now, we are aiming to have an international debut at a great European festival.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new feature, very early stages yet. It will be in the Faroese language, but in order for me to get more artistic and financial freedom, I hope it will be internationally funded.